Producers of goods rely on internal truck fleets and contracted common carriers to carry goods from starting points to destinations. For example, a producer of consumer goods may need to have a load of goods transported from its place of manufacture in the country to a distribution warehouse in a city. In order to reduce transportation costs, producers may rely on internal fleets of vehicles or may contract common carriers to carry the goods on a dedicated tour or a shuttle. A dedicated tour is typically a long haul route comprising a set travel plan of segments between points, where the entire tour is assigned to the producer at a fixed cost. For example, a tour may comprise a route for carrying goods between the points of Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, Nashville, and returning to Louisville. Segments along this exemplary tour include, for example, Memphis-Nashville, Nashville-Louisville, Louisville-Nashville, and Nashville-Memphis.
To reduce inefficiencies, a planner with the producer schedules loads to be placed on a segment of a tour. For example, a planner may see that a load must move between Smyrna, located just outside of Nashville, to Louisville. If the dates, times, and other criteria are appropriate, the planner may place this load on the Nashville-Louisville segment of the tour.
In addition to placing loads on dedicated tours, a planner may place loads on a common carrier that has not been contracted to provide a dedicated tour to the producer. For example, a load traveling outside of a normal delivery segment may be placed with a common carrier because there are no tours that cover the load's segment. Or, a planner may place a load on a common carrier because the common carrier is cheaper than using a segment of a tour. In another example, the planner may place a load on a common carrier because there are no segments of dedicated tours available or that are capable of meeting the loads time requirements.
Complicating matters further for the planners is a third option; producers often have short haul shuttle routes available. A short haul shuttle route, or “shuttle,” is like a tour, but is only between two points, where the two points are within a days drive of each other. In a short haul shuttle route, the driver will travel from point A to point B and return from point B to point A on the same day. A shuttle driver may handle more than one load during a day. Planners may elect to place a load on a short haul shuttle route.
An overarching concern for planners is to get all loads to their intended destination in a timely fashion at a minimal cost.
One can see the complexities of creating tours, scheduling tours, and placing loads on tours while trying to maintain an efficient system. Systems exist for assisting planners in managing planning, but these systems are woefully inadequate. For example, a Red Prairie System will attempt to find the cheapest rate to place a load on a common carrier, but Red Prairie does not factor in possible cost savings associated with using a dedicated tour or a short haul shuttle route. In addition, Red Prairie does not automatically place loads on any type of transportation system. Red Prairie performs no analysis of past transportation patterns and does not recommend tours to create.
Nistevo is another system designed to help transportation planners. Nistevo assists planners in creating tours and placing loads on tours. Unfortunately, Nistevo does not do any of these functions automatically. Nistevo merely permits planners to manually create tours and manually place loads on tours. With the daunting challenge of maximizing efficiencies systems where producers may have, for example, 1000 loads a day to transport and over 700 dedicated tours, a better system is needed.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the above problems and achieving one or more of the above stated goals.